“The hospital became a nightmare,” said a patient who survived after a major medical institution in Donetsk was shelled by Ukrainian troops in a series of attacks on residential neighborhoods that resulted in four casualties throughout the city.

“This is absurd,” 37-year old Dmitry Kozhur told AP
correspondent on the ground. “We came here to keep living,
but now we are risking death.”

One of the largest medical facilities in Donetsk, the Vishnevsky
hospital №1, had its dentistry unit hit by a mortar shell on
Thursday, with much of the second floor destroyed and burnt out
as a result of the strike.

OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) that same day
attended the hospital to register the damage done and speak with
the survivors of the attack.

“The SMM saw many evidently traumatized and crying civilians
and medical staff,” the report reads. “Ten patients in their pajamas
were outside the building. A doctor told the SMM that two
civilians who had been standing outside the building at the time
of the attack had been hit by shrapnel, one of whom, he said, had
died.”

On top of its regular activities, the hospital has been providing
treatment to civilians injured in the conflict.

Several residential buildings have also been hit in the shelling.
The local healthcare officials said in a statement the overall
death toll was four people, while 18 were injured.

“As a result of the shelling of the residential districts
four civilians died – one on the territory of the city hospital
№1, another in Kirovsky district, and two more in Petrovsky
district,” the statement reads.

The OSCE report speaks of the two apartment buildings examined by
the members of the mission, both of which are 500 meters from the
SBU (Ukrainian intelligence) building, occupied by the anti-Kiev
forces.

“The area has been shelled three times previously in the past
three weeks,” the report says.

The cities of Donetsk and Lugansk remain major strongholds of
anti-government forces fighting for the independence of the east
Ukrainian territories from Kiev. The Ukrainian troops have
advanced to the outskirts of the cities and have so far resorted
to artillery fire in their effort to drive the insurgents out.

Five people from the same family were killed on Thursday in Lugansk as the basement
they were taking refuge in, was shelled by Kiev government
forces. An Orthodox Church suffered bomb damage in the city the
same day.

The Ukrainian army could soon switch to street fighting.

“I can’t say which of the cities [Donetsk or Lugansk] gets
more attention, because our military personnel is stationed next
to both of them, they are getting ready to free the cities,”
Andrey Lysenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian Security Council
said. “That’s going to be very hard, because we’ll have to
set free street after street, building after building.”

The UN has earlier this week expressed concern over the way military operations have
been conducted in eastern Ukraine.

“What will happen if we have intense fighting inside the big
urban centers of Lugansk and Donetsk?” UN High Commissioner
for Refugees Vincent Cochetel asked. “Fighting in
highly-intensified urban areas could lead to massive exodus and
massive destruction.”

The ongoing fighting in the east of Ukraine has already led to
118,000 people being internally displaced, and 740,000 having
fled to Russia, the UN estimates. At least 1,367 people,
civilians and military, have been killed and 4,087 people wounded
in the military conflict.